New Trash Trucks on the Move in St. Louis

The trash is piling up in some alleys around St. Louis as the cash-strapped city struggles to keep up with trash pickup.

ST. LOUIS (KMOX) - The trash is piling up in some alleys around St. Louis as the cash-strapped city struggles to keep up with trash pickup.

Linda Illert loves to see the trash truck arrive. She owns a two-family flat near Terrace and Christy, pays about $200 every three months for water and trash pickup, and they only pick up the trash once a week.

It used to be twice a week, she says - sometimes it's overflowing, sometimes it’s close to the top.

One trash driver admits they're scrambling to cover all the alleys.

"All I can say to the customers is bare along with the city," he says. "We're trying to do the best we can."

Mayor Lyda Krewson says the problem is the fleet of 20-year-old trash trucks is breaking down. A small batch of new trucks arrives at the end of the month, but it's not expected to fix the problem completely.

“We had 20-year-old trash trucks -- they break down all the time, they leak trash out the back of them, so we are just now, this month - I think at the end of July, we’re getting in a few more new trash trucks, and then we have more on order,” the mayor says.